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CPython core developers participate in the core development process for a
variety of reasons. Being accepted as a core developer indicates that
an individual is interested in acquiring those responsibilities, has the
ability to collaborate effectively with existing core developers, and has had
the time available to demonstrate both that interest and that ability.

This page allows core developers that choose to do so to provide more
information to the rest of the Python community regarding their personal
situation (such as their general location and professional affiliations), as
well as any personal motivations that they consider particularly relevant.

Core developers that wish to provide this additional information add a new
entry to the Published entries section below. Guidelines relating
to content and layout are included as comments in the source code for this page.

Core developers that are available for training, consulting, contract, or
full-time work, or are seeking crowdfunding support for their community
contributions, may also choose to provide that information here (including
linking out to commercial sites with the relevant details).

The following core developers have chosen to provide additional details
regarding their professional affiliations and (optionally) other reasons for
participating in the CPython core development process:

Nick originally began participating in CPython core development as an
interesting and enlightening hobby activity while working for Boeing Defence
Australia, and hence takes an active interest in open source supply chain
management in large organisations, and how that relates to open source
sustainability in general.

As a core developer, he is primarily interested in helping to ensure Python’s
continued suitability for educational and data analysis use cases, as well
as in encouraging good architectural practices when assembling Python
applications from open source components.

David has been involved in the Internet since the days when the old IBM
BITNET and the ARPANet got cross connected, and in Python programming since
he first discovered it around the days of Python 1.4. After transitioning
from being Director of Operations for dialup Internet providers (when that
business started declining) to being a full time independent consultant,
David started contributing directly to CPython development. He became a
committer in 2009. He subsequently took over primary maintenance of the
email package from Barry Warsaw, and contributed the unicode oriented API.
David is also active in mentoring new contributors and, when time is
available, working on the infrastructure that supports CPython development,
specifically the Roundup-based bug tracker and the buildbot system.

David currently does both proprietary and open source development work,
primarily in Python, through the company in which he is a partner, Murray &
Walker, Inc. He has done contract work
focused specifically on CPython development both through the PSF (the
kickstart of the email unicode API development) and directly funded by
interested corporations (additional development work on email funded by
QNX, and work on CPython ICC support funded by Intel). He would like to
spend more of his (and his company’s) time on open source work, and so is
actively seeking additional such contract opportunities.

The issue metrics automatically collected by the CPython issue tracker
strongly suggest that the current core development process is bottlenecked on
core developer time - this is most clearly indicated in the first metrics graph,
which shows both the number of open issues and the number of patches awaiting
review growing steadily over time, despite CPython being one of the most
active open source projects in the world. This bottleneck then impacts not only
resolving open issues and applying submitted patches, but also the process of
identifying, nominating and mentoring new core developers.

The core commit statistics monitored by sites like OpenHub provide a good
record as to who is currently handling the bulk of the review and maintenance
work, but don’t provide any indication as to the factors currently influencing
people’s ability to spend time on reviewing proposed changes, or mentoring new
contributors.

This page aims to provide at least some of that missing data by encouraging
core developers to highlight professional affiliations in the following two
cases (even if not currently paid for time spent participating in the core
development process):

developers working for vendors that distribute a commercially supported
Python runtime

developers working for Sponsor Members of the Python Software Foundation

These are cases where documenting our affiliations helps to improve the
overall transparency of the core development process, as well as making it
easier for staff at these organisations to locate colleagues that can help
them to participate in and contribute effectively to supporting the core
development process.

Core developers working for organisations with a vested interest in the
sustainability of the CPython core development process are also encouraged to
seek opportunities to spend work time on mentoring potential new core
developers, whether through the general core mentorship program, through
mentoring colleagues, or through more targeted efforts like Outreachy’s paid
internships and Google’s Summer of Code.

Core developers that are available for consulting or contract work on behalf of
the Python Software Foundation or other organisations are also encouraged
to provide that information here, as this will help the PSF to better
facilitate funding of core development work by organisations that don’t
directly employ any core developers themselves.

Finally, some core developers seeking to increase the time they have available
to contribute to CPython may wish to pursue crowdfunding efforts that allow
their contributions to be funded directly by the community, rather than relying
on institutional sponsors allowing them to spend some or all of their work
time contributing to CPython development.

Specific technical areas of interest for core developers should be captured in
the Experts Index.

This specific listing is limited to CPython core developers (since it’s
focused on the specific constraint that is core developer time), but it
would be possible to create a more expansive listing on the Python wiki that
also covers issue triagers, and folks seeking to become core developers.

Changes to the software and documentation maintained by core developers,
together with related design discussions, all take place in public venues, and
hence are inherently subject to full public review. Accordingly, core
developers are NOT required to publish their motivations and affiliations if
they do not choose to do so. This helps to ensure that core contribution
processes remain open to anyone that is in a position to sign the Contributor
Licensing Agreement, the details of which are filed privately with the
Python Software Foundation, rather than publicly.